


welcome back

by cougarlips



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon Universe, Gen, Not Canon Compliant - Kingdom Hearts Dream Drop Distance, POV Third Person, Terra/Lea BroTP, let them be happy, let then be bros, not a lot of graphic descriptions of violence but there's one line that is so???, terra deserves happiness rip
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-01
Updated: 2017-03-14
Packaged: 2018-09-21 07:26:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,870
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9537860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cougarlips/pseuds/cougarlips
Summary: Lea placed a hand on Terra’s shoulder, whose own chest began heaving with the memory. “It wasn’t you,” he said simply. “I can see it on your face -- you’re blaming yourself for what happened to me and Isa. Don’t.”“But it--”“No,” Lea said, a ring of finality in his voice.





	1. Chapter 1

Terra woke up alone. The dusty laboratory sat dim and cold while he adjusted to the surroundings.

It was different than it had been _before_ \-- back when he wasn’t Terra _or_ Master Xehanort, but Ansem’s Apprentice -- but held an air of familiarity all the same. The air felt stale and all around him notebooks sat scattered, flipped to this page and that, though he couldn’t figure out the rhyme or reason behind each open diagram.

Slowly, Terra sat up. Curling his legs underneath him, he closed his eyes and called to mind the checklist he used to cycle through any time he woke up:

How did his body feel? Strong, weak, tired, sluggish, springy? He felt his bones sag with exhaustion and his brain processed his thoughts a half second slower than normal.

Did he  _hurt_? He felt for his toes, tucked inside heavy boots -- for his fingers, eyeing each one from his gloved hand and wiggling each one, feeling no pain. Feeling _nothing_. He straightened his back and winced at the stiffness before rolling his head around on his neck. No pain, no tenderness.

In the distance, he heard heavy footfalls echoing through the halls of the castle, and before he could process it he stood up, his hands snapping forward, but his Ethereal Blades refused to come forth, the weapons he’d grown accustomed to for over ten years failing him.

He began steeling himself, grounding his stance, when the figure turned the corner and Terra saw him: Number VIII, Axel, except... not.

Not-Axel froze. “Damn,” he said. Then, slowly, he stepped inside the lab. Whistling low under his breath, he raked his eyes over Terra’s form. “I didn’t think your eyes would be so blue.”

Forgetting his attentiveness, Terra brought a hand up to his face, and Axel smiled. “You had to have known we’re _back_ , right?” he asked. He gestured towards his own chest and said, “I’m Lea. Dilan, Aeleus, Even, and Ienzo are somewhere else in the castle -- that’d be Xaldin, Lexaeus, Vexen, and Zexion. Don’t know where Braig is.”

Terra shuddered at the name, a sight that did not go unnoticed by Axel -- no, _Lea_ , Terra corrected himself.

“What about Number VII?” he asked, his voice hoarse.

It was Lea who stiffened this time, and his voice took a callous edge. “Don’t know,” he said quietly. “Isa wasn’t here when he lost his heart. We were separated.”

A vague memory stirred inside Terra’s mind: two boys -- one with short red hair that stood on end and his blue-haired accomplice -- the one with red hair screaming, weeping, pleading as he, Terra -- _no, it was Ansem’s Apprentice_ \-- reached a gloved hand into the other boy’s gaping chest cavity and removed a still-warm heart --

Lea placed a hand on Terra’s shoulder, whose own chest began heaving with the memory. “It wasn’t you,” he said simply. “I can see it on your face -- you’re blaming yourself for what happened to me and Isa. Don’t.”

“But it--”

“ _No_ ,” Lea said, a ring of finality in his voice.

Terra met Lea’s eyes slowly, the tenderness in them easing his anxiety just slightly. Lea smoothed his thumb over Terra’s skin soothingly before he asked, “So, what about you? What do I call you? I feel weird calling you the Superior in my head.”

Frowning, Terra looked back down at his hands. “I think…” he began, but he paused. He saw his hair out of his peripheral vision, falling around his face like a curtain, rich brown and heavy like it had been his whole childhood. He held his right hand out, anxiety pooling in his stomach before he flicked his wrist. Holding his breath, Ends of the Earth materialized in his grip with a familiar weight.

He met Lea’s teal eyes with a sheen in his blue. “Terra,” he introduced himself. “I’m Terra.”


	2. Chapter 2

Lea learned quickly that Terra was _not_ the Superior, but it was different than, say, _he_ was not Axel or Ienzo was not Zexion.

Axel retained Lea’s memories. He may not have had Lea’s mindset or attitudes -- at least, not towards the end -- but he could recall his childhood, could remember what it was like to once have Isa as a friend, could dwell on his misadventures around Radiant Garden on rainy days.

Terra, as he told it, had no recollection of his life prior to working underneath Ansem the Wise.

It was difficult to explain, Terra apologized. He was one of the first vessels by a man named Xehanort, a rogue Keyblade Master, but as Terra was unwilling to allow himself to be overruled in his own mind, he ejected their combined consciousness. He said it left the shell of his body with no memory, just the clothes on his back and the Keyblade Armor in his grasp as the last vestiges of his former life.

Why he woke up alone -- without Xehanort’s mind warring beside his own -- was beside him, but he wasn’t going to complain about being free for the first time in over a decade.

“My memory’s not totally there,” Terra murmured that evening, still hiding in the laboratory he woke up in. “I remember… fragments, I suppose. I remember Braig; I took his eye out and scarred his face when I was still myself. I remember parts of when I was Ansem’s Apprentice and bits of when I was Xemnas, but the whole picture…. It’s not there.”

Lea nodded solemnly. “Some of my old life started to fade the longer I was Axel, but now that I’m back it’s like everything is crystal clear again. Everything _hurts_ ,” he admitted, his hand absently rubbing circles over his chest.

Terra snorted. “Yeah, I hear that,” he agreed. “I forgot what it was like to feel so strongly.”

They lapsed into silence for several minutes, both of them staring at the keyblade before them, before Lea finally admitted, “I miss Isa.”

Terra turned his blue eyes onto Lea’s, but Lea kept his gaze down, his jaw set tightly. He continued, “We were best friends, you know? We swore we’d be together forever, that we’d be old farts together yelling at all the kids who wanted to play in the fountains in the Garden. We swore we would never let anything tear us apart.”

“I’m sorry,” Terra said softly. “I wish I could tell you….” he paused, but ultimately shook his head and started again: “As far as I can tell, we all woke up where we lost our hearts. He should’ve been here when we woke up. I don’t know why he wasn’t.”

“What about you?” Lea asked, not quite ignoring Terra’s words. “Anyone your heart hurts for?”

He hummed in response. “Yeah. When everything went down with Xehanort, he killed… well, basically my father. He raised me and taught me everything I know. And I had two best friends: Aqua and Ventus.”

“I met a Ventus once,” Lea said, frowning. “He was a Keyblade wielder, just like you. He… he was identical to Roxas.”

“Roxas….” The name lingered on Terra’s tongue, and when he placed a memory to the name he brought his face into his hands. “I couldn’t tell why I _needed_ him in our ranks, or why Braig was so touchy around him.”

“Braig knew him, too?”

Terra nodded. “He knew all three of us. He _fought_ all three of us. I think the only reason he survived is because of Master Xehanort.”

He paused, reflecting back on Roxas, the memories floating around in his mind. “His Somebody,” Terra started, “who was he again?”

A sour expression met Lea’s face and he sighed. “His name is Sora. He grew up on Destiny Islands and took out the Apprentice’s heartless form, Ansem, Seeker of Darkness. His best friends are Kairi and Riku -- a Princess of Heart and Ansem SoD’s vessel of choice. All three of them are Keyblade wielders.”

“Yeah?” The names struck a chord inside Terra: Sora and Riku, the two who eliminated Xemnas, but also… a boy with downy soft silver hair and aquamarine eyes, reciting after Terra the Master’s Rites, chasing off after another with spikes and alarmingly blue eyes.

“I _should_ try and find them,” Lea sighed. “Axel killed himself to save -- Sora. I need to know it wasn’t in vain.”

“Can I… come with?” Terra asked, barely breathing. He felt a _need_ inside, a need to see these boys and set his record straight, to do what he could to right his -- Xehanort’s, Xemnas’s -- wrongs.

Lea looked at Terra with a frustrating calm. Then, he nodded.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> feedback is more important than oxygen u3u
> 
> did i mention my tumblr is [@masteraceds](//masteraceds.tumblr.com)? bc it is and i'm always down to cry over how much i love terra


	3. Chapter 3

As they made their way through what remained of Radiant Garden, they tried to keep each other occupied with conversation.

“Do you have nightmares when you try to sleep, too?” Terra asked Lea.

Sometimes the conversations weren’t the most pleasant, but they did the job all the same.

Lea nodded. “Most of the time, they’re memories, like Vexen roasting in front of me and Riku’s Replica killing Zexion, or the Lanes Between….” He drifted off, then shook his head. “Sometimes… sometimes, I remember _people_ and the good times, but those are worse.”

Terra nodded. “Like with Roxas?” he asked tentatively.

“Yeah, but sometimes there’s another person with us. I can never remember who it is when I wake up, but… they were important,” Lea admitted. “Isa, too,” he added.

So they traded stories when they could, when the happiness ran stronger than the sad and they could smile through their pain. Stories like when Lea and Isa caught Dilan and Aeleus on an off day and convinced them to join them in a sparring match, and when the young boys lost the older men taught them how better to ground themselves and defend each other in battle. Stories like when Terra was younger, before Ventus joined them at the Land of Departure, he would sit in with Aqua’s ballet lessons and even join her on occasion, though his flat-footed, inherently graceless stature left them laughing so much they cried rather than make any progress.

When they finally made it to the tiny, magical house in the middle of the Gardens, Lea let Terra take the back end. There was no mistaking Terra’s anxieties; despite their talks down memory lane his skin itched no less than it did when he first awoke, the words _dirty_ and _unclean_ swirling around his mind with every waking second.

Lea entered first, his hands raised in his defense, palms facing outward, eyes wide and unyielding. “It’s me,” he said, then winced, shaking his head. “It’s _Lea_.”

“Lea?” a voice rang, and Lea’s head spun around to face Sora.

He let out a heavy breath, his hands coming up to brace against his neck. “Good,” he said absently, “you’re alive. I would’ve killed you myself if I…” he paused, grimacing, “killed myself to save you for nothing,” he finished lamely.

Riku stepped forward, his body language more than making up for their height difference as he stared into Lea’s eyes. “How do we know we can trust you?”  he asked.

“Because I’m with _him_ ,” Lea said innocently, gesturing towards the doorway where Terra bent low to enter.

“Him?” Yuffie, in the corner, asked, “Who’s he? Why should we trust him?”

But Terra’s reveal created an interesting effect around the packed room: many of the Radiant Garden natives did not recognise him, save for Merlin whose eyes widened. Others, such as Sora, Donald, Goofy, and Kairi, recognised him as Xemnas, their weapons coming forth in blinding flashes.

The most surprising of reactions came from Riku and King Mickey, who stood helpless and sputtered respectively at the sight of the man they both once knew.

Riku waved his best friends down, stepping forward cautiously. “You…” he said slowly. He stepped from in front of Lea to meet Terra head on, his fair skin, silver hair, and bright aqua eyes contrasting sharply with Terra’s deep complexion, rich brown hair, and graying blue eyes.

“It _is_ you,” Terra muttered. “It’s been… ten years, hasn’t it?” he asked. “Almost eleven. Or maybe twelve? And you’re a Wielder. You protected the Light. You did it,” he said. His eyes filled as he looked down at Riku.

“Terra?” the King called. “Terra, what --”

“I don’t know,” Terra answered honestly, his hands shaking against his better wishes. He looked around the room, meeting eyes in various stages of mistrust. Sora, next to Riku, looked conflicted, the struggle deep in his expression palpable. The girl next to them had a pinch to her mouth that said she knew Xemnas -- or at least his ways -- and did not trust him either, but inside of her Terra sensed a familiar spark of magic, one that read much like Aqua’s.

But everyone else looked at him with animosity or disdain: the man with the scar running diagonally across his face, the woman with a thick brunette braid matching the length of her spine, the one with a toothpick sticking out between his teeth, the duck and the dog he vaguely recognised from The World That Never Was.

But it was Riku his gaze kept snapping back to, whose green eyes sat wide in his pale skin, hidden by his fringe. Riku, who stood just shy of six feet tall if Terra had to guess. Riku, whose entire being steeped in darkness.

“I thought I recognised you,” he admitted softly, finally, the words barely a breath in the air between them. “When we fought in the Castle that Never Was, I thought I felt you. It felt… _wrong_ fighting you, but I attributed it to Ansem’s influence inside me trying to sway me back into the darkness.”

Terra hung his head. “It certainly had something to do with it, yes,” he answered, “but you did. Sense me, I mean,” he added. “I recognised you, too, and the King as well. Your friend,” he said, glancing up at Kairi, “has an energy signature similar to that of my best friend, Aqua. I recognised her, too.”

“What about me?” Sora asked from the side, and Terra looked up at him sadly.

“Of course I knew you,” he said sadly. “How could I not? Roxas…..” he said, and deep in Sora’s eyes he saw a flash, and Terra winced.

Terra looked around at the faces surrounding him, Lea’s as well, and sighed. “I have nothing I can say that will fix what my Nobody -- and his Somebody ruined, but I’m here to offer anything I can give. I’m in all of your debts.”

“What do you mean, Xemnas’s Somebody?” Sora asked suddenly, all traces of Roxas’s anger gone, replaced by their confusion. “ _You_ are his Somebody.”

Lea stepped forward, snaking his arm around Terra’s shoulders languidly. “You see, Sor, that’s a _long story_ \-- one we’d be more than happy to explain to you. Right, Terra?”

The King, answering for Terra, shook his head. “There isn’t time. Riku and I are….” He paused, shaking his head a moment later. “We’re about to embark on a mission to the Realm of Darkness. You only _just_ caught us. Until we return -- if you take it -- you can remain here under my protection.”

Terra nodded after a moment of deliberation. “If you need _anything_ , Your Highness --”

The King smiled. “Perhaps when we get back.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> anyways i'm not sure anymore how long this is going to be???? i'm hoping one more part will wrap everything up. it's mostly finished, but it _may_ go into 5 parts. who knows? :^)
> 
> also even though this doesn't follow dream drop canon, i'm not 100% sure _where_ it falls in the timeline???? bc i haven't played it so i'm not sure when what happens. let's just say riku and sora took their exam, sora failed but riku passed, and now they're back at merlin's while riku and mickey prep to go to the RoD?? sure, that sounds like it makes sense????


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> just a heads up, this chapter deals with sensory overload and also alludes to panic and anxiety attacks that come with being overwhelmed, so please stay safe!!

Terra and Lea both only had a loose grasp on their emotions. The fact was, they grew so accustomed to living without them that now, having them back in full force, the sheer intensity of them left the pair reeling and in pieces with only each other to lean on because only the other really understood what it was like.

With Riku and the King gone on their mysterious mission, they found themselves in a situation where they simply didn’t know what else to do. Neither of them had family or friends to return to. They had no lives to pick back up. They brought themselves to Sora and his company as last resorts because really, what else could they have done except wait around for someone to come back for them? For _Xehanort_ to come back for them?

But they hadn’t counted on returning to Radiant Garden to cause them so much pain.

Even without their heightened sensitivities, Radiant Garden was perhaps one of the most painful worlds either of them could go back to. Lea -- who grew up in Radiant Garden, who effectively died there, who lost his life and his best friend and his future all in one go -- likened Radiant Garden to the hole left in his chest when his heart was ripped out, and coming back felt like salt in the wound despite the fact that he now was technically “whole”.

Terra couldn’t imagine going back to The Land of Departure, but he knew that if he himself had to go back there and _stay_ there after everything he did it would be torture, though even if he hadn’t been born and raised in Radiant Garden it still hurt him to be there because it was in Radiant Garden that he had his last pleasant memories of Aqua and Ventus, and it was where he still trusted and believed in Master Xehanort.

The first few days without Riku and the King, Terra and Lea kept mostly to themselves and wandered around Radiant Garden, noting the (many) differences. Sometimes they found themselves talking to the other inhabitants who called themselves the Restoration Committee, and Terra felt relieved when they admitted they _did_ recognise Lea from when he was a teenager.

By about four days into their absence, though, the pair simply _felt_ too much.

And that’s all they could really describe it as: it was all too much. Too familiar, too homely, too nostalgic, too broken, too this, too that. It circled back to having emotions again for the first time in a decade at least for Lea and over a decade for Terra. They found themselves holing away in Merlin’s home, desperate for darkness, for silence, for peace, for any escape they could manage because being surrounded by their memories was just too much.

That was how Sora and Kairi found them, Terra with his arm wrapped around the Lea’s shoulders next to him. Lea tucked his head into Terra’s neck and Terra rested his cheek over Lea’s head, but where Lea clenched his eyes shut and wore a grimace over his features Terra’s expression was wide, open, and haunted, cheeks gaunt and hollow with whatever horrors flashed behind his eyes.

Sora sat down heavily across from them, his eyes sad, and Terra asked Sora quietly, “How do you do it?”

“Do what?” he asked.

Terra bit back a cry, fought the emotion making his eyes fill but to no avail. As a tear slipped down his cheek Kairi leaned forward to swipe it away and Terra leaned into her hand despite himself, reveling in the comfortable familiarity he sensed within her.

“He doesn’t remember being a Nobody like we do,” Lea said, his voice gravelly with disuse. “His case was special, not like us.”

“We were both special cases, but that doesn’t mean we don’t remember what it felt like,” Kairi argued.

Lea opened his eyes and he fixed them on hers, skewering her with his unusually bright gaze. It made Terra ache all the more to see him so callous; Lea, Terra came to realize, was much like Ventus: happy-go-lucky, an optimist at heart. It was unlike his general nature to be so hard, especially around Kairi, but Terra understood. “Then enlighten us, Princess,” he snapped. “How do you do it? How aren’t you falling apart? How come you aren’t ripped at the seams? How come you have it all together while we’re over here --”

“That’s enough, Lea,” Terra said gently, and immediately Lea closed his mouth and shut his eyes, his hands tightening around his midsection as if he could physically hold himself together.

Silently, Kairi stood up and left. Sora, however, lingered.

“I have this disconnect, sometimes, where I revert back to a Heartless,” he admitted in a near whisper. "It's not the same as when Roxas's consciousness surges forward, but I get what it feels like to feel like I'm falling apart.

Terra looked at him and his heart broke at the somber expression on his face, but Sora sat straight up and his eyes held no room for pity.

“When he and I rejoined, it wasn’t willingly,” he continued, and this is where Lea perked back up, if only slightly. “Roxas was… well, he was tired. He just wanted somewhere to belong again. He had it with Axel, but then something….” He stopped, brows stitching together. “ _Something_ happened, and neither of us know what, but he couldn’t go back. And then Riku got him and threw him into a simulated Twilight Town, and he was happy there, but that was all a lie. He came back to me because it was his last resort, but he didn't want to. Not really.”

He looked up at Terra and he drew his knees to his chest, tucking his chin over them like he was just a kid again. “Roxas and I are cool now, but sometimes he does come back out, you know? I can still feel him. It guess it goes back to our being a special case, not like you guys and _your_  Nobodies.”

“Do you ever feel just… overwhelmed, though?” Terra asked him, and Sora huffed, an exhausted smile gracing his lips.

“Every day,” he admitted. “But when I revert back into a heartless…. Well, when I come back to being myself, it’s like i’m dialed up to eleven. _Everything_ is so much more intense. It’s like sensory overload to the extreme. Donald and Goofy always have to baby me until I’m ready to get back up on my feet again, but I need it. I can hardly deal with a Shadow without their screeching making me want to pass out.”

“Shadows are silent, though, aren’t they?” Lea asked.

Sora shrugged. “I’m attuned to them on a different level because I spent time as one. I can hear them. If I’m under for long enough, I can start to understand what they’re saying to each other.

“So how do I do it?” he flipped back to Terra, and he sighed. “I have to rely on my friends. They ground me, you know? When the tiniest sensation sends me into a frenzy I have to rely on them to calm me down. Donald and Goofy try to sit down with me and talk me back into a safe place. Kairi’s really good at calming me down, but she’s also pretty exceptional when it comes to healing magic so she can give me a boost if I need it.

“Riku struggles with it, too, though,” Sora admitted, ducking his head over his knees again. “We try to help each other when it comes down to it. He knows all about feeling like he’s just… coming undone.”

“Maybe when he gets back from his mission, we can ask him,” Lea suggested.

Terra nodded, and despite himself he couldn’t quell the pride that rose inside him at the thought of his pupil surpassing him all these years later.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so... this au is getting slightly out of hand but i also really, really love it. i'm sorry i took so long to upload this, but i might have thrown myself headfirst into another fandom and i'm also an active writer for _another_ fandom so it's basically all one big fandom mess (though, i'm not _really_ complaining).
> 
> if you guys want to hmu on tumblr, my primary blog doubles as a kh/ff/disney blog!! i'm user [@masteraceds](http://masteraceds.tumblr.com) and i'm always down to talk!!!


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